Although Toshiba has a respect in the Brand name, this notebook processor is decent but slightly inferior to the intel’s core i3 processor. It is still faster than the core 2 duo processors around ( or the AMD’s Athlon ii processors for that matter).

User Reviews and Feedback

– Toshiba Direct has an average rating of 4.5+ at the time of writing.

– Walmart gives it 4.2 rating.

The Satellite L655-S5146 is a 15.6 inch notebook powered by Intel’s latest Pentium P6200 – a dual core 2.13 GHz processor ( more detail about it later). Two of its most prominent features include the HDMI output support and a large battery life – over 5 hours, if we are to believe the specifications detailed from Toshiba. The Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 comes with 4 GB of RAM and 500 GB of Hard disk. Pricing ? – the notebook has been found to be available for $538.99 at Toshiba direct website. According to Toshiba, the Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 has been marketed exclusively by Walmart. We expect that it should be very closer to the MSRP price suggested by Toshiba at $538.99. You can expect a $10 to $20 rebate on walmart roll down.

At part of the Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 review, we will present you with the stripped down specification of this notebook, that will let you know its key facts at a glance, quickly.

As you can see Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 has pretty much every thing that you need in an entry level notebook. Most importantly it also comes with HDMI, generally not found in all the entry level notebooks. Does the $538 price justifies it ? Read on.

The Processor

The Pentium P6200, the dual core processor, that powers the Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 can be classified as an entry level processor. It has a clock frequency of 2.13 GHz, and has 3 MB of L3 Cache ( Intel calls it smart cache). The Pentium P6200 is based upon the same Arrandale architecture that drives the Intel’s core i3 processor, but has missing Hyperthreading. It is therefore a stripped down version of the core i3 processor. It retains some of the goodies of the Arrandale architecture, including the integrated memory controller, the 3 MB Cache and the integrated GPU.

The RAM and the Hard Disk

The Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 comes with 4 GB of RAM and 500 GB of Hard Disk. Absolutely no complaint for an entry level notebook.

Display

The 15.6 inch display in the Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 has a screen resolution of 1366 x 768. It is LED backlit, so you can expect brighter display. More importantly the notebook comes with HDMI connector that you can use to display the contents of a HDTV.

Other notable features

The other most prominent feature is the long battery life, which according to Toshiba is just above 5 hours. It is pretty decent by any standard. The notebook does come with a webcam, something most customers are always concerned about when buying an entry level notebook.

The Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 does come with other common features that come with a notebook, including the wired and wireless networking, DVD ROM, and a Memory Card Reader. There are two USB 2.0 ports and a combo USB/eSATA port.

Bottomline

The Toshiba Satellite L655-S5146 makes a decent entry level affordable notebook. You get everything that you need in a notebook. The processor is not a high end but it will let you do all the home and office computing without any hitch.

If you are looking for a low cost and larger screen we suggest you also take a look at 17.” Toshiba Satellite L675D-S7102. Prices slightly higher at $568, this notebook is powered by AMD dual core Atlon ii P340 ( 2.2 GHz) processor. Besides a bigger 17.3″ screen, it also comes with a Blu Ray ROM, if this is something that could interest you.